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September 5, 2008

First-degree murder trial put on hold





An appeals court has stayed the scheduled Monday first-degree murder trial of a Muskogee man charged in the July 2007 killing of another Muskogee man.

Cherokee County prosecutors have appealed a decision by Chief District Judge Bruce Sewell to prohibit prosecutors from using statements Robert Lee Smallen made to investigators.

Smallen, 56, a welder, was under suspicion in the death of Ronnie Dean Hall, 47, a bricklayer, when he allegedly asked for an attorney. Hall was killed near the Horsehoe Bend area of Lake Tenkiller.

Smallen asked for an attorney, so any statement he made can’t properly be used against him, Smallen’s defense attorney Rex Earl Starr told the Court of Criminal Appeals of the State of Oklahoma.

Cherokee County Assistant District Attorney David Pierce appealed Sewell’s ruling suppressing Smallen’s statements.

The appeals court stayed the trial pending its decision on the state’s appeal.

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